[Untitled Map of the Western Territory]

Mapping the results of the Second Dragoon Expedition.

This important map of the western United States was first published in 1836 to accompany the Congressional report on the results of the Second Dragoon Expedition of the year prior. The image covers much of the Great Plains between Santa Fe and the Missouri River, including most of the future states of Kansas and Nebraska. Parcels of land allocated to various ’emigrant’ (i.e. recently relocated) Native American tribes are brightly outlined in original hand color. Treaty details are provided only in one instance, related to northern lands ceded in 1825. Several forts are labeled throughout the image, including Leavenworth, Towson, Gibson, Smith, Armstrong, and Calhoun.

The Second Dragoon Expedition, like the First (1834), was a United States military envoy sent to establish official government relations with various Indian tribes across the Great Plains. Diplomatic efforts were necessary to appease the local indigenous people, whose lands west of Arkansas and Missouri were being forcibly settled by eastern tribes forcibly relocated through The Indian Removal Act of 1830. The expedition’s route can be traced within the image from Fort Leavenworth to the foothills of Pike’s Peak and back. Only one soldier was lost, and the mission was considered a political and military success.

Sources: Wheat 421; Wagner-Camp 63; Streeter 1799